“All the great dangers threatening humanity with extinction are direct consequences of conceptual thought and verbal speech.”

—Konrad Lorenz

So he conceives,

And in the conceiving

Threatens,

And in the speaking of the conceiving

Threatens.

He is a small man

With a bald head.

He is frightened by spiders.

Neat, he aspires

To a clean desk.

His notes are cross-indexed.

He is shy with females.

But when he conceives

The words come,

And the words are shaped

Like cudgels, like bullets,

Like bombs, like battleships.

He is a small man.

He likes gardening.

He has developed

An exotic mum.